I still think there's a lot of life in the PC market, especially when you consider localization deals for different territories and what not. Making the game available to more people on more systems is never a bad thing, though heavily under-charging for decent games is a pet-peeve of mine. When people can get too many good games for too low a price, it ensures that only AAA will survive in the marketplace. I personally prefer not play into devaluing games by selling them for less than they're worth. It's a trend that will make this form of entertainment seem valueless in the long run. Especially when Hollywood movies are getting worse (they contain much less "entertainment time" than games) and yet movie ticket prices are skyrocketing! I say let the casual phone developers run themselves into the ground with 99c games if they want, but a good adventure game is always worth paying for.

Hey AGC2, your thoughts on pricing adventure games reminded me of this interesting discussion by Gabe Newell about online sales of digitally distributed games: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOMI0BxB0yA#t=450s. I'm not saying that you should sell your games for cheap as possible, I just thought you might find it interesting.

Also, have you considered selling Al Emmo on Steam? (I predict you've fielded this question before )

Yeah, Steam wouldn't accept the game. And they also, apparently, don't give feedback or criteria on what steps developers can take to alter the content and improve the chances of the title to get it accepted. The excuse provided by Mike Dunkle was a bullshit one to be sure ("We already have too many similar games on Steam") and when I asked what he meant, because they were obviously allowing TellTale and LucasArts Monkey Island adventure games on there, he got a bit hot under the collar. He agreed to look at it again, but got back about a week later and said the same thing. I'd been thinking of redoing the Al Emmo cutscenes etc. to make them look better, but I'm not going to drop money on it at the risk of steam saying the same thing again and without them giving any kind of criteria to work towards. Quite stupid really. Any game they put up is going to make them money and Al Emmo has a higher metacritic rating than a lot of the other stuff they have on the network. So, who knows how they operate.

what a super lame excuse. they have TONS of games similar to other games on there...oh well, their loss!

Anonymous Game Creator 2 wrote:

Yeah, Steam wouldn't accept the game. And they also, apparently, don't give feedback or criteria on what steps developers can take to alter the content and improve the chances of the title to get it accepted. The excuse provided by Mike Dunkle was a bullshit one to be sure ("We already have too many similar games on Steam") and when I asked what he meant, because they were obviously allowing TellTale and LucasArts Monkey Island adventure games on there, he got a bit hot under the collar. He agreed to look at it again, but got back about a week later and said the same thing. I'd been thinking of redoing the Al Emmo cutscenes etc. to make them look better, but I'm not going to drop money on it at the risk of steam saying the same thing again and without them giving any kind of criteria to work towards. Quite stupid really. Any game they put up is going to make them money and Al Emmo has a higher metacritic rating than a lot of the other stuff they have on the network. So, who knows how they operate.

what a super lame excuse. they have TONS of games similar to other games on there...oh well, their loss!

If only that were the case. Steam is a massive online distribution channel, so it would be hugely beneficial for us to get our games on there. Sadly the loss is ours, not theirs. Agreed that their excuse was lame and dismissive, though. Hopefully, we'll have better luck getting Mages on Steam.

In other news, we have recently welcomed AGDI forum regular Dr. Jones onto the Mage's Initiation development team as a character animator. He's produced some mighty impressive animations for D'Arc, which feature a lot of expression and personality. His contributions are really going to help to lighten the workload, and his style makes each animation frame look unique, rather than boring and generic. Even a simple standing-up animation he made recently isn't just limited to the character standing; it actually reflects the panicked mood D'Arc is in at the time.

Skilled 2D pixel-art animators who are dedicated to the project are always in short supply, so Dr. Jones is a great addition and his efforts will surely help move development along faster!

I have a question. I plan to pre-order regardless because I have loved the remakes and would like to compensate you for those too. My question is does us as customers pre-order help towards production going faster? I know i see in these forums A LOT of people asking to help financially and this would be great way to do exactly that right?

I also have another question. I feel like it's sort of a catch-22 scenario. I also don't mind if the IA members respond to this question because they seem to be doing the same thing with their new original game. As stoked as i was for the Kings Quest 9 game to come out, one of the things i really don't like is the move to 3d. I speak for myself with the next few comments but i feel the meat of the community probably agrees with me. Part of the charm of these games were the hand painted backgrounds. You can just see how much care and time goes into those. The 3d version, for me, just makes me wish so much it was 2d like the games used to be. I say this is a catch-22 because the newer generation of gamers didnt have to grow up climbing the ladder going through Atari, collecovision, etc. So it's hard to gain that audience when a lot of them will see screen shots and not even bother completely ignoring that the great gameplay ideas were what made these games great too. This is one of my gripes with Tell-Tale too. I dont really like their adventure games and am heart broken they got the license for KQ when it would have been soooo much better going to you folks. Did this question come up when you started production on MI? I feel if you went 3d you had a greater chance to gain more recognition to the more "shallow" gamers, but most likely alienated the Sierra niche community (Although i would have trusted your vision and still gave it a shot, but am so happy you stayed with the classic formula with tweaks). Does my question even make sense lol???

I have a question. I plan to pre-order regardless because I have loved the remakes and would like to compensate you for those too. My question is does us as customers pre-order help towards production going faster? I know i see in these forums A LOT of people asking to help financially and this would be great way to do exactly that right?

Pre-Ordering Mage's Initiation won't help speed up progress exactly, because at the moment we're not collecting any money for the pre-orders and it's just to get an idea of numbers. But even if we were collecting money, we still couldn't spend it on development costs, as we'd have to sit on it, to ensure that it could all be refunded in the event that the game got canceled or was otherwise discontinued (basic contingency plan).

I'm not sure about the feasibility of accepting donations, but now that we have finished making free games, we might look into placing a donate button on the Himalaya Studios page to see if it can assist with development costs.

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This is one of my gripes with Tell-Tale too. I dont really like their adventure games and am heart broken they got the license for KQ when it would have been soooo much better going to you folks. Did this question come up when you started production on MI? I feel if you went 3d you had a greater chance to gain more recognition to the more "shallow" gamers, but most likely alienated the Sierra niche community (Although i would have trusted your vision and still gave it a shot, but am so happy you stayed with the classic formula with tweaks). Does my question even make sense lol???

I don't really see 3D and 2D as competing technologies, just different styles. Personally I prefer 2D, but that's because I don't think any adventure game has been done properly in 3D yet, due to budget restrictions of the niche companies developing them. You'd need a LOT of money to revolutionize an adventure game in 3D and do it justice. To me, TellTale's games feel like resurrected shells of great titles from the 80's and 90's that end up disappointing because the emphasis is on "tales" and not "epic stories". Every TellTale game feels very much like the previous TellTale games, just with different characters. They chase IP's that are renown for greatness and mediocre-ize them; there seems to be no interest in making them shine. They also maim healthy competition, so there's little incentive for them to make better games. The 3D aspect has less to do with this mediocrity, and more to do with the fact that Telltale are unwilling to change the watered-down strategy that's currently working for them.

To put things in perspective, we took some bold risks with Al Emmo to make it differ from the standard adventure game. Unfortunately, those risks failed. A large segment of the adventure game community (as well as online distribution channels and retailers) held those risk-taking strategies against us and refused to buy/distribute the game. On the other hand, TellTale plays is safer than safe, and even customers who lambast their games for being too easy are always willing to "give them one more chance" and send them more money. So is it any wonder they don't want to change their strategy? Say what you will about Al Emmo, but we weren't afraid to step outside the comfort zone and take risks with that title. And we'll be doing the exact same thing with Mages, albeit using the experience gained from Al Emmo to minimize the things that didn't work last time. I've yet to see TellTale take a risk that could result in either complete failure or great success.

In regards to the decision to make Mages 2D, I don't think we have the budget to do it justice in 3D, so I wouldn't even try. We're in no financial position to try and revolutionize the adventure genre. We're just trying to maintain the status quo, sticking with an art style we know will work, and trying to make enough money so that we can hopefully continue with more interesting projects in the future, without such tight financial constraints.

I put my name on the preorder list, as I'm celebrating my emergence back into adventure game nerddom that I neglected for so very, very long. And I just want to say that I'm totally behind this project. It'll be interesting to see a QFG style game with a magic twist but being primarily story-driven.

And there were some bits I saw in here I wanted to comment on...

1) Donations: If you want, I'll check with some of my colleagues on this, but if you're a for-profit entity I believe it might actually be illegal to solicit donations under Â§501 of the Internal Revenue Code. I do know that it's not illegal for individuals to do so (whether it's with PayPal buttons or getting change on the streets) because the IRS feels this constitute a non-taxable gift (if under $13K for the whole year), but for an actual partnership like Himalaya...don't get yourself in trouble!! None of us want that!

I'm a good source on this, I have an EA designation.http://taxes.about.com/od/taxglossary/g/enrolled_agent.htm

And I'm one semester away from earning my master's degree in accounting (concentrations in taxation and public finance.)

2) 3D vs 2D: something I could go on all day about. I'm pushing 30 so I remember the CGA-EGA-VGA-SVGA evolution (then it became the SVGA-FMV-3D crap devolution) and grew up with all the classics we know and love. I have mixed feelings about QFG5 and MI4, mostly negative but there were things about those games I enjoyed, and I have enjoyed what I've seen of The Silver Lining (if it would freakin stop quitting out on me every 10 seconds!)

But I'm biased in both taste and age bracket, in that I find 3D mostly hideous and unappealing. 2D allows for so much more aesthetic pleasure but also for the artists involved to really show off their individual styles-- since I'm trying to be less "Hey I'm mopey that 1993's over" and more "So it sucks the golden age of gaming has come and gone, but maybe there's a way we can use all this technology and available resources to our advantage."

To me, the "holy grail" of game graphics is the Sierra style of the early 90's; the hand-painted backgrounds with bright interactive objects and those close-ups you'd get in the cutscenes and other game aspects. Secondary to that would be the LucasArts stuff that made was made 100% with Deluxe Paint (or like MI2 where it was a mix of Deluxe Paint and some hand-painted backgrounds.)

But in with using technology to one's advantage, one thing I've seen with all these calibers of games made with AGS is just how different everyone's style is-- for instance, all the Yahtzee games use very simplistic flat colors and were done in MS Paint. But they were done well and the style just works. Other creators want to stay true to that old school style rendering we all know and love but sometimes end up doing poorly trying to emulate it like that; while I've seen other games (such as the short-lived Principles of Evil series which I ADORED) instead use hi-res 2D imaging to their advantage and have a totally unique graphic design for their characters, backgrounds, GUIs, etc.

3D just does not accomplish that. One major bomb I'm thinking of right now, a sequel that never should've been made...Simon the Sorcerer 3. I LOVED the first two games, they had appealing VGA graphics that were indicative of their individual artists' styles whereas StS3 had both sucky graphics and gameplay that I barely made it past the first chapter.

So to conclude, I hear you on 3D graphics just ruining a game for you. It's not just so much that the graphics are unappealing too, but also that most 3D interfaces are a real pain in the ass. I'm biased in my point-and-click love though.

3) Games in episodic format, particularly Telltale: As a gamer, I'm not a fan of the episodic format. I hate the way it disrupts continuity, or worst yet gives the player false hope that they'll have continuity*. Aveyond 3 suffers from this bigtime; I liked the first two games and generally support indie developers who use RPG Maker well. But I just hated how except for 1 chapter/episode, every freakin chapter/episode you pretty much had to build up your characters all over again just to play a game about 1/8 the size of the original Aveyond where almost nothing imports from your old save and actually kinda defeats the purpose. If it weren't for the fact that I love RPG Maker's simple charm, the little touches Amaranth Games puts into their creations, and the Aveyond story arcs themselves...I'd otherwise say I'd be super-hesitant to buy Aveyond 4 should it ever see the light of day and if it does, I REALLY hope they don't use the episodic format again.

In the business sense though?

I hate to say this but episodic format sells. Whether the episodes are stand-alones or in cliffhanger format, they're moneymakers. Someone's really into the story and/or gameplay, they'll get hooked and want to keep buying more. Gamers like us are also from an age where you really got more immersed in a game and its storyline and intricacies; episodes let someone with a shorter attention span get just slightly immersed as is the casual gaming mentality of the 2000s. So while us purists hate it, it sells.

While there's some episodic games that appeal to me, I would still rather throw down money for a good old school full-length game where you really get immersed, and it has a lot of replay value without any of those classic design flaws (like the game becoming unwinnable, but not so simple that there's no challenge.)

*Unlike in the Laxius Power/Force series where you can import your characters and all their special abilities, stats, money, and items come with you-- THAT is a smart way to use an episodic feature though the games themselves are not episodes as LF1 and LF2 are large epic RPGs, LF1 longer I think. LP3 was also utterly massive, and you lost a lot by not importing as far back as LP1!)

Hey, welcome back to the adventure alcove of the net! Thanks for your comments on Mage's Initiation, too. It's nice to know that the game resonates so well with the intended audience!

Regarding donations, as far as I understand it, any US company can accept donations, commercial, non-profit, or charity. The donations are considered gifts, and so long as all donations are passed through the company books as taxable income (and donors made aware that their contributions aren't tax deductible), it's fine. Even so, if you could confirm this, it'd be appreciated.

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But I'm biased in both taste and age bracket, in that I find 3D mostly hideous and unappealing. 2D allows for so much more aesthetic pleasure but also for the artists involved to really show off their individual styles-- since I'm trying to be less "Hey I'm mopey that 1993's over" and more "So it sucks the golden age of gaming has come and gone, but maybe there's a way we can use all this technology and available resources to our advantage."

I can relate to that. In fact, I've posted about 2D vs 3D at length elsewhere... or maybe even earlier in this very thread. I think the rise of the Indie development scene is giving "outdated" artistic styles a more favourable second look-in. I've already seen a few high profile print magazines reviewing Gemini Rue (low-res artwork) and they didn't chide it for it's choice of graphical style. I just see 2D and 3D as different styles, which have different feels attached to them. The main benefit I can see with 3D is that character animation becomes much faster, easier, and more cost-effective.

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To me, the "holy grail" of game graphics is the Sierra style of the early 90's; the hand-painted backgrounds with bright interactive objects and those close-ups you'd get in the cutscenes and other game aspects. Secondary to that would be the LucasArts stuff that made was made 100% with Deluxe Paint (or like MI2 where it was a mix of Deluxe Paint and some hand-painted backgrounds.)

We're going to try and do the Mage's Initiation cutscenes in a style similar to the LucasArts classic, "Full Throttle". That is, including close-up scenes with overlayed character animation frames that are a scripted part of the game engine as opposed to movie files that get played back. The former approach tends to have a much more artistic sense and integrates with the game scenes more cleanly. Your description is the style of "era" gameplay we're trying to establish with Mages, albeit with higher res graphics.

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So to conclude, I hear you on 3D graphics just ruining a game for you. It's not just so much that the graphics are unappealing too, but also that most 3D interfaces are a real pain in the ass. I'm biased in my point-and-click love though.

I think it's possible for 3D to be done "right" in an adventure, but it just hasn't been yet. Either the current crop of 3D games strive to be too much like the old 2D ones and end up feeling like empty shells (or bringing the 2D limitations over)... or they just don't have the budget required to develop the type of huge 3D environment necessitated for the adventure protagonist to quest across and experience that "epic journey" quality. "Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl" is a First Person Shooter primarily, but it had quite a nice RPG/stat system built into it, with a HUGE world that could be explored on foot. Something like that might be the cornerstone for a new style of game that would revolutionize the adventure genre in such a way that hasn't been done before.

I don't personally like the episodic format either, but I think the reason they sell for TellTale is because A) They license IP's with existing fan-bases; B) the Initial up-front cost of a season is low, so more people are willing to take a chance and buy; and C) Telltale have a near-monopoly on commercial adventure games at the moment. But only option B is a factor based on the episodic nature of their titles, and once A and C shift, they might hit a brick wall with B. I wouldn't completely rule out the episodic marketing model, though. It may be suitable for certain types of adventure games that are smaller in scale. I simply wouldn't want to unbendingly structure a company entirely around ONLY episodic games. I feel that tries to push EVERY game into a specific mold without respecting the diversity of different styles and formats of the originals. I think each game's model should be based on what's best for the game in question.

BTW, I'll probably need to get you to handle my backdated tax returns.

Hey, welcome back to the adventure alcove of the net! Thanks for your comments on Mage's Initiation, too. It's nice to know that the game resonates so well with the intended audience!

It's great to be back! I hadn't been able to do much forum-ing in the past 2 years or so but I finally have some downtime now and am catching up on a *lot*. I'd been lurking here and on the AGS forums a bit but hadn't been active. Glad to be up to speed on everything now!

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Regarding donations

Will check with some colleagues on this and see what I can find in the Internal Revenue Manual, I'm not 100% positive about the answer but I do remember a consignment shop that got totally fried because they had a box for clothes they wouldn't buy/trade off customers, said it was for charity, but repeat customers found things that were supposedly for charity...on the racks. Though those might've been different charges of fraud. Either way, I dropped a line at NATP and will see if I can learn anything further.

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I think the rise of the Indie development scene is giving "outdated" artistic styles a more favourable second look-in. I've already seen a few high profile print magazines reviewing Gemini Rue (low-res artwork) and they didn't chide it for it's choice of graphical style. I just see 2D and 3D as different styles, which have different feels attached to them. The main benefit I can see with 3D is that character animation becomes much faster, easier, and more cost-effective.

That's definitely a hopeful sign. (That reminds me, I have to get on the Gemini Rue wagon...) While it may be easier and in a sense cheaper to animate in 3D, I just think that 2D is really the best medium and really shows off an individual artist's style-- like despite all three of these games being from the same era and in VGA resolution, you can tell that Simon the Sorcerer, Monkey Island 2, and King's Quest 6 had different artists. All this 3D stuff? I find it hard to see any particular mark or personal touch.

2D can be badly done too, and some 3D is done better than others, though I think 3D just makes it feel even more "fake".

We're going to try and do the Mage's Initiation cutscenes in a style similar to the LucasArts classic, "Full Throttle". That is, including close-up scenes with overlayed character animation frames that are a scripted part of the game engine as opposed to movie files that get played back. The former approach tends to have a much more artistic sense and integrates with the game scenes more cleanly. Your description is the style of "era" gameplay we're trying to establish with Mages, albeit with higher res graphics.

That sounds awesome! While I loved Full Throttle, compared to most adventure games it felt a little more like an interactive movie. Scripting the animation in...as someone finally learning to code in AGS, (haven't coded in 6+ years-- still in beginner stage!) I will just say that I'm in awe. Higher res is good too! (I appreciate the 256-color feature in the engine, but the whole palette usage made me want to run and hide.)

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I think it's possible for 3D to be done "right" in an adventure, but it just hasn't been yet. Either the current crop of 3D games strive to be too much like the old 2D ones and end up feeling like empty shells (or bringing the 2D limitations over)... or they just don't have the budget required to develop the type of huge 3D environment necessitated for the adventure protagonist to quest across and experience that "epic journey" quality. "Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl" is a First Person Shooter primarily, but it had quite a nice RPG/stat system built into it, with a HUGE world that could be explored on foot. Something like that might be the cornerstone for a new style of game that would revolutionize the adventure genre in such a way that hasn't been done before.

Good point-- some of these games, it's painfully obvious they went over-budget mid-production and you can just see the quality decline before your eyes. (Though some older games are guilty of this too, with notoriously bad QA, but I'm thinking Beast Within right now because it was supposed to be 8 CDs originally then got cut to 6, with the Ludwig scenes not being shot.) I agree about needing the big world to play out, I think that would be direly necessary for a 3D game to succeed-- but I'm still in my early 90's mindset, thinking about Freddy Pharkas which in game terms was only one town (20-25 rooms in development terms) but managed to totally work. It wasn't as long and epic as other adventure titles at the time, but it remains one of my favorite games.

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I don't personally like the episodic format either, but I think the reason they sell for TellTale is because A) They license IP's with existing fan-bases; B) the Initial up-front cost of a season is low, so more people are willing to take a chance and buy; and C) Telltale have a near-monopoly on commercial adventure games at the moment. But only option B is a factor based on the episodic nature of their titles, and once A and C shift, they might hit a brick wall with B. I wouldn't completely rule out the episodic marketing model, though. It may be suitable for certain types of adventure games that are smaller in scale. I simply wouldn't want to unbendingly structure a company entirely around ONLY episodic games. I feel that tries to push EVERY game into a specific mold without respecting the diversity of different styles and formats of the originals. I think each game's model should be based on what's best for the game in question.

I think the episodic format would maybe work for some of these games that would qualify as "medium-length" such as the Ben Jordan series. If the game's TOO short, I think it's basically telling the player "Hey, this is one helluva money-making mechanism!" I haven't played Tales of Monkey Island, my first reaction was "OMGWTF Monkey Island 5?!!?" followed by "Huh? Episodes...?" then I learned all about TellTale. I'm wondering if it's worth picking up, I already know that I'm not buying the "Deluxe" versions of Monkey Island 1 and 2?* Come on, those games did NOT need to be remade.

Business is a funny blood sport though. TellTale may have the monopoly now but that can change. This just might be the time for resurgence after all.

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BTW, I'll probably need to get you to handle my backdated tax returns.

No problem, my e-mail addy's the same, drop me a line or PM me! I'll get your tax issues sorted in no time.

*-(I'm not going to lie, I *was* slightly curious, but other hardcore fans said it isn't worth it. Noted.)

For me if I'm going to play a 3D adventure, Id want it to play pretty much like the Original Tomb Raider (Just watched the TR video on gamespot's video game history month lol but nevertheless). Those had some pretty good puzzles and some of them were environmental like jumping platforms and stuff. A memorable part for me was the start of Tomb Raider 2 and climbing out of that hole right at the start. I just don't think 3d fits into point and click adventure games and am glad you are going with the current art style you are using. Also Thank you very answering my questions.

*Edit* It's too bad you guys couldnt do a "Game Off" of sorts with Tell Tale and the studio that produces the best KQ game gets the IP and their game on steam (Both games going on steam would be good). I know it's not really doable though because if your game wasn't picked it would be a waste of sorts. I'm just really sad the license went where it did with 3 other companies (You, IA, POS) already doing KQ games that would be better anyways. Hell a 4 way battle.... IA's KoS, POS's TSL, TellTales game (sigh) and an original KQ AGD game maybe involving the father (Sorry about all the abbreviations). What an awesome contest that would be. So you want the Kings Quest IP.....

Hey guys! I know I haven't been around for ages but I wanted to stop in and say that this looks absolutely amazing! I'm going to sign up for the pre-order as soon as I post this, although I'm weary to commit to anything without an idea of the price.I'm very excited about this project though, the screens look AMAZING!

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